Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Indonesian Image Enhancement

1989; Wiley; Volume: 5; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3033075

1467-8322

Felicia Hughes‐Freeland,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

Felicia Hughes-Freeland has carried out extensive fieldwork in central Java, and made a film The Dancer and the Dance on court dance in Jogjakarta under a joint RAII National Film and Television Schoolfilm training scheme, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Artistic displays overseas are one way in which governments communicate images of themselves to other nation states. In Indonesia, this concept of 'cultural diplomacy' has recently been emphasized by a former Foreign Minister, Professor Mochtar Kusumoatmodjo, who is now applying the concept to a massive promotion of Indonesia in the United States during 1990. The festival aims to increase the flow of Indonesian exports into the States and the flow of American tourists into Indonesia. In London, a mini festival is being planned for the summer of 1990 by the South Bank Educational Section. Such image enhancement exercises are doubtless intended to pave the way for 'Visit Indonesia Year' and 'Visit ASEAN Year' planned for 1991 and 1992 respectively, and effect the desired increase in tourist figures. Designated as a major area of growth in the latest National Development Programme (Repelita V), tourism is already being emphasized, with 1989 being dubbed 'Tourism Awareness Year'. Two Indonesian cultural events took place in London in June this year: an exhibition of Asmat wood carving at the Commonwealth Institute (1-3 June) with attendant events (anthropology seminar at SOAS, ethnographic film, dances), and an evening of dances from the Mangkunagaran palace at the Institute of Education, University of London (June 14). These two events represent the extremes of what lies within the control of the Indonesian state, the Asmat inhabiting the furthest boundary of Indonesian dominion, and the Mangkunagaran standing as a traditional power centre of Java, itself the power centre of the Republic. When we are given the chance to witness such spectacles, there is a risk that we view them as tantalizing signs of exotic and ancient traditions or as startling instances of the 'primitive' surviving into our day. Recent trends in the field of 'world music' signal a possible rapprochement allowing performers from different cultures to meet on an equal level-though whether there can be equality of mutual influence is another matter. 'World music' as a concept is both idealistic and naive, resonant of 'global village' openness and egalitarian communality. We should not overlook that third world artists who visit the west have inevitably been screened and scanned by complex bureaucratic procedures which select those fit to be cultural diplomats. Behind the seemingly 'open' communicativeness of festivals such as those organized so successfully by WOMAD (World Music and Dance) lie the constraints and calculations of the dispatching governments who are aware that this is one way for the name of the nation-state to evoke images of creativity, tradition, accessibility and international viability. Indonesian nationalism, with its long history of deliberate cultural policy at home, is inevitably turning with energy to image enhancement overseas. Organized by the 'Asmat Progress and Development Foundation', based in Jakarta and established by Kharis Suhud, speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, the Asmat tour was designed 'to promote and preserve the existence of the culture within the ethnic group in Indonesia'. Thus the embassy press release which also points out that the Asmat, who live on the south-east border between Indonesian Papua (Irian Jaya) and Papua New Guinea, have 'from the Stone-age up to the present time... kept their faith with their customs, tradition and religion in their daily lives'. At the same time, the stated aim of the government is 'to provide the necessary help and guidance and other opportunities to enjoy a better standard of life and to enable them to participate in their national development without losing their identity and culture.... to mix with people of other cultures and religions'. There are two themes in this promotional rhetoric: develop and preserve. Indonesians came to control West Papua in 1963, since which time they have been struggling to dominate a region known for its intractable terrain and cultural diversity. Indonesian policies are incurring strong criticisms from environmental and human rights groups, particularly regarding the destruction of the rain forests, the uprooting and 'resettlement' of indigenous peoples away from their traditional lands, and the transmigration of large numbers of Javanese settlers into the province. The Indonesians claim that the Papuans, the Asmat included, are happy to be developed. However, the number of Papuans who have fled across the border to Papua New Guinea does not fit with this claim. This major refugee problem is rarely discussed by the British media in general, and we have to rely on sources such as TAPOL (the British Campaign for Indonesian Human Rights), Survival International, and Amnesty International for information, usually rejected instantaneously by the Indonesian authorities. Given this background, the paradox of the Asmat promotion becomes more sharply defined, with political strategies being directly at odds with the purported cultural ones. This duality was clearly displayed in the structure of events in London to promote the Asmat culture, particularly in the anthropology seminar, the film The Asmat, and dance performances. The anthropology seminar comprised two elements: a paper on the culture and society of the four to six thousand people 'who call themselves Asmat' (sic) by Professor Koentjaraningrat, a leading Indonesian anthropologist, and a paper on acculturation and government policy by Dr Budhisantoso. The first paper concentrated on traditional social structures and collective representations, most of which have ceased to exist, but cleverly avoided questions of how change had come about. The talk was designed to put the artefacts such as shields and ancestral bis poles in context. Budhisantoso's paper explained how Indonesian policies use 'traditional' Asmat social organization as a basis for their administration, but again the dynamics of the process and the part of the Asmat themselves in what is happening was not discussed. At one point Budhisantoso did make a connection between past and present in reference to head-hunting, banned by the Indonesians in 1964; there is still head-hunting among the Asmat, he said: 'Not dead head-hunting, live headhunting... the men hunt the women'. The reactions to this remark by the audience revealed much about the different ideas of what constitutes appropriate anthropological discourse in Britain and Indonesia, with the Indonesian section of the audience (many of them from the Embassy) becoming convulsed with laughter, while the non-Indonesian academics sat poker-faced. Indonesian attitudes and collusion regarding the 'primitive' groups under their jurisdiction were also manifest. The discussion following Koentjaraningrat's paper